Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 4.pdf/332

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1849. Dickens, David Copperfield, p. 202. Now you may mizzle, Jemmy, and if Mr. Copperfield will take the chair I'll operate on him.

1851-61. H. Mayhew, London Lab., iii. 154. Of course I mizzled, for fear of a stone or two.

1853. Comic Almanack, p. 52. 'The Vulture.' 'Smith!' I cried, 'your horrid smoking, Irritates my cough to choking. Having mentioned it before, Really, you should not compel one—will you mizzle—as before?' Quoth the Vulture 'Never more.'

1853. Surtees, Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour, i. Soapey Sponge, as his good natured friends called him, was seen mizzling along Oxford St., wending his way to the west.

1857. New York Herald, 17 June. They say the treasurer has mizzled, and as there is a small sum of a hundred thousand dollars missing, the presumption is not a very violent one.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v.

1863. C. Reade, Hard Cash, III. 77. 'How dare you eat it there,' said Hayes brutally: 'take it to your own crib: come, mizzle.' And with that he lent him a contemptuous kick behind.


Mizzler subs. (common).—A fugitive. Rum mizzler = a good hand at dodging or getting off.

1834. W. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, p. 180 (ed. 1864). From the Arch-cove to the needy mizzler.


Moab, subs. (obsolete University).—1. A hat: specifically, the turban-shaped hat fashionable among ladies 1858-9. [From the Scripture phrase, 'Moab is my washpot' (Ps. lx. 8)].

1864. Reader, 22 Oct. Moab, a . . . hat. . . . University it is all over. We feel sure we know the undergraduate who coined the expression; he is now a solemn don delivering lectures in Cambridge.

1884. Graphic, 20 Sept., p. 307/2. The third, with his varnished boots, his stiff brown moab of the newest fashion, his well-displayed shirt-cuffs.

2. (Winchester College).—See quot.

1866. Mansfield, School Life, 190. On the west side of School court, a spacious room, nicknamed Moab, has been erected, with numerous marble basins, and an unlimited supply of fresh water.


Moabite, subs. (old).—A bailiff; a philistine (q.v.).—Grose (1785).

1811. Lex. Bal., s.v.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v. Moabite, a constable.


Mob, subs. (old: now recognised).—1. The populace; the crowd. [A contraction of mobile vulgus]. Also mobility and mobocracy.

1686. Durfey, Common. of Women, 'Dedication.' The mobile being all poison'd with the pernitious Tenets of a misled, ungrateful Usurper.

1688. Shadwell, Sq. of Alsatia I, in Wks. (1720), iv. 15. This morning your cloaths and liveries will come home, and thou shalt appear rich and splendid like thy self, and the mobile shall worship thee.

1690. Dryden, Don Sebastian, iv. 1. She singled you out with her eyes, as commander-in-chief of the mobility.

1694. Country Conversations [Notes and Queries, 7 S. vi. 126]. 'I cannot approve of the word mob, in these verses, which though significant enough, yet is a word but of Late Use, and not sufficiently Naturalized to appear in a serious Poem: Besides I esteem it a kind of Burlesque word and unsuitable to the Dignity of Horace.'

1702. Mrs. Centlivre, Beau's Duel, ii. x. If so, you'll have both the mob and the law on your side.

1703. Ward, London Spy, pt. vi. p. 140. The House was surrounded with the mobility, that it look'd like the Welsh-Cow-keepers-camp, consisting of a number of both Sexes, of all sorts and sizes.

1711. Spectator, No. 135. It is perhaps this humour of speaking no more words than we needs must which has so miserably curtailed some of our words,